"They's one thing ag'in' yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, was bawling to Hartley: "they's jest been worked one o' the goldingedest schemes you ever see! 'Bout six munce ago s'm' fellers come all through here claimin' t' be after information about the county and the leadin' citizens; wanted t' write a history, an' wanted all the pitchers of the leading men, old settlers, an' so on. You paid ten dollars, an' you had a book an' your pitcher in it."
"I know the scheme," grinned Hartley.
"Wal, sir, I s'pose them fellers roped in every man in this town. I don't s'pose they got out with a cent less'n one thousand dollars. An' when the book come—wal!" Here he stopped to roar. "I don't s'pose you ever see a madder lot o' men in your life. In the first place, they got the names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an' Judge Ricker was ol' man Daggett. Didn't the judge swear—oh, it was awful!"
"I should say so."
"An' the pitchers that wa'n't mixed was so goldinged black you couldn't tell 'em from niggers. You know how kind o' lily-livered Lawyer Ransom is? Wal, he looked like ol' black Joe; he was the maddest man of the hull b'ilin'. He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around like a blind bull."
"It wasn't a success, I take it, then. Why, I should 'a' thought they'd 'a' nabbed the fellows."
"Not much! They was too keen for that. They didn't deliver the books theirselves; they hired Dick Bascom to do it f'r them. Course Dick wa'n't t' blame."
"No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their end of the table. "Hartley offered me a good thing to come, and as I needed money, I came. I don't know what he's going to do with me, now I'm here."
Albert did not go out after dinner with Hartley; it was too cold. Hartley let nothing stand in the way of business, however. He had been at school with Albert during his first year, but had gone back to work in preference to study.
Albert had brought his books with him, planning to keep up with his class, if possible, and was deep in a study of Cæsar when he heard a timid knock on the door.